Perseverance, integrity and passion are three words that describe how Praweerat Dheva-Aksorn helped clear her family's debt from the property business and built up her own empire.
She recalls how on her birthday in 1997 her father phoned her from Bangkok, speaking plainly that he could not visit her in Omaha, the US city where she was studying for a postgraduate degree, because the family had a business crisis.
"He told me our family had a 4.8-billion-baht debt and could no longer support me and my youngest brother," Mrs Praweerat says. "He asked me to try fighting on my own. Holding the phone and jotting down the figure, I was shocked it had nine zeros."
She had two remaining semesters to finish at a cost of $US6,000 (about 300,000 baht at the time), so she held a garage sale for all her unnecessary stuff, even a sofa, and made money from artwork.
The university offered her a scholarship, but she refused because it required her to study until earning a doctorate. She wanted to finish only her Master of Business Administration and hurry home to Thailand to help the family.
Walking dogs early in the morning and working in restaurants in the afternoon made up her routine to earn money for almost a year before receiving her MBA.
Mrs Praweerat and her family at Wat Mangkon in Yaowarat.
Mrs Praweerat was back home in 1998 but working for others, as her family's property business -- RM Group, a housing developer under the Kunalai brand, founded in 1981 by her father, Pakorn Sangkawanich -- had no money to pay her a salary.
"The 4.8-billion-baht debt was still there, excluding other loans of 200 million baht borrowed from individuals," she says. "Most was from buying land bank plots, as RM aimed to get listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, which at the time required developers to have land plots enough for five-year development."
While working as a project manager at JHL Development, a property firm owned by one of her father's friends, she helped the company clear all its debt. Realising she could do it, she resigned and sought to help RM with the same task.
She coordinated and negotiated with creditors, did a debt-restructuring plan to submit to the Bank of Thailand for approval, and developed housing projects to repay debt until the final bit was retired in 2007.
Led by herself, the family's eldest daughter and second child, and eldest brother Phusit, RM Group rebounded from a negative 1997 to revenue of 950 million baht in 2006.
"The profit from housing development during the debt clearing was very minimal, but we could repay debt, pay staff salary and support and raise our family," Mrs Praweerat says. "My father said he never knew when the debt would be paid off, but he vowed not to lose his reputation. He would repay all the debt and maintain credit for the children, so as not to make his children's life difficult.
"The Sangkawanich surname must be mentioned as a highly responsible family," she adds.
After clearing all the debt, her father supported everyone in branching out in the business.
Mrs Praweerat asked him for the Kunalai brand to use with her own housing development, but the rest of the family disagreed because they thought the brand was tainted by the crisis.
"Creating a new brand is harder than rebranding, and there is nothing wrong with the Kunalai brand, which has been through thick and thin," she says. "I decided to rebrand it by adding Villa to the name."
Villa Kunalai Co was founded in 2007 with registered capital of 20 million baht and was planned at first to be a small-scale developer. But her father suggested the company should grow and raise funds within 10 years.
"I set a mission in 2007 to get the firm listed on the stock exchange by 2018, despite borrowing to set it up," Mrs Praweerat says. "The first land plots were also owed to landlords. This was about the family's reputation and the credit the family always maintained."
On Tuesday she at last made her father's dream from 1995 come true. Villa Kunalai Plc (KUN) entered its first day of trading on the Market for Alternative Investment on Dec 17 with registered capital of 300 million baht.
The company focuses on low-rise or single detached houses, duplex houses and townhouses priced between 2 million and 6 million baht a unit in the Bangkok outskirts, where demand is mainly local and from middle-income earners.
The flagship location remains Nonthaburi, where both RM Property and Villa Kunalai have developed housing projects from the beginning, says Mrs Praweerat, who is chief executive of Villa Kunalai Plc.
The company aims to develop low-rise projects in three other outlying areas, starting in the east with a 24-rai plot in Chachoengsao, where Villa Kunalai will launch 140 low-rise units priced from 2 million baht.
"We aim to have 1 billion baht in revenue within the next three years and 5 billion baht in 10 years with at least 10 zones in Bangkok outskirts," Mrs Praweerat says.
In the first nine months of 2019, Villa Kunalai posted 461 million baht in revenue with a net profit of 43 million baht, outperforming full-year revenue of 448 million baht in 2018.
"We have applied a lean strategy to utilise all resources for maximum benefit from planning, projects and housing design and procurement since 1998 until now," Mrs Praweerat says. "This strategy can help keep us go through the ups and downs of the industry."
Mrs Praweerat, 46, says property has been in her blood since childhood. Her father, who was a construction worker like her grandfather, started his first housing project in 1979 when she was just six years old.
"The project site was my playground," says Mrs Praweerat, a Thai-Chinese woman who has never been afraid of sunlight. Her face with no makeup shows some freckles on her cheeks.
"My siblings and I always waited for the weekends when we were brought to the site. It was the only time we met our parents and stayed together, as my parents worked at the site and we stayed separately."
She tried to help her father at the site in the hope that she would be taken to meet him every weekend. She helped sift sand and count bricks after they were loaded. At 10 years old, she could drive a backhoe.
Today, despite a lot of routine jobs, the mother of three starts every weekday by preparing breakfast for her husband, two daughters and son early in the morning. After that, she has 30 minutes alone to herself, with a book.
Right now she is reading Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth.
"I have learned from this book that the key to success from the beginning is not strength but grit," Mrs Praweerat says. "Sometimes you apply strength, sometimes flexibility, or you take the pain."
BIO DATA
Praweerat Dheva-Aksorn
Age: 46
EDUCATION
- Bachelor of Education, art education, Chulalongkorn University
- Master of Business Administration, Creighton University
CAREER
- 2007-present: Chief executive, Villa Kunalai Co Ltd
- 2003-07: Executive director and marketing manager, Tonnam Management Co Ltd
- 2001-07: Managing director, Tonnam Property Co Ltd
- 2000-07: Coordinator of debt restructuring programme, RM Property Co Ltd
- 1999-2000: Assistant to the managing director, JHL Development Co Ltd
- 1998-99: Design development manager, Topaz Gems Co Ltd
HOBBIES
Reading, watching movies